Planting Seeds in Your Subconscious

I’ve heard (or, to be more accurate I’ve read) meditation being referred to as the process of learning to learn, and I’ve been toying with the concept in my practice this week. And though I can’t say that I fully understand why some people consider mediation to be so connected to learning in a meta sort of way, I’ve made a few connections between the process of mediation and various learning theories.

Chapter five of How People Learn was a good launching point for this topic because the chapter’s topic (i.e., the brain) is the focus of any mediation practice. Every time I sit down to meditate, I’m struck by the dramatic change that closing your eyes has on your thought process. As is suggested in How People Learn, vision and neural activity changes the brain and builds pathways and synapses. Shutting off as much of the stimulation as possible for short periods of time (when you’re not sleeping) can help reduce blood pressure and allow for reflection on previous experience.

In fact, I’m becoming convinced that mediation is the time when our working memory is reduced significantly or nearly turned off, during which time we can work through stuff in and out of our long term memory. In my meditation class this week, we practiced what my teachers calls, “planting seeds in your subconscious,” which I really liked. The idea is that we can tell our sub conscious mind the things we want to accomplish, improve, or just remember while in the depths of mediation. This really works great for things that the conscious mind might criticize or ignore. For example, let’s say you wished to be more confident in your interactions with your colleagues at work. Thinking about that consciously might keep your engaged in the work for a short while, but working memory is very limited. So placing this stuff in a situation where most of your visual and auditory stimulation is turned off may really be beneficial for creating greater behavioral changes over long periods of time.

In another surprise this week, I’ve actually begun noticing real improvement in my ability to meditate. You might ask yourself, “what does becoming a better meditator look like?” Well, I’m starting to actually figure that out. First, I am much better at becoming relaxed in a short period of time. It’s as if I’ve learned a few shortcuts through the maze to the good parts of meditation (i.e., being in the “flow,” with my mind clear and my surroundings disappearing).  And getting into the flow of things much more quickly means I have more time to explore the benefits of meditation. I’ve found that using visual memories from past deep meditations helps trigger the feelings and thoughts that I have had in those experiences. I’m nearly immediately drawn back to those experiences (and I must admit, I learned this technique in my meditation class, which I would be lost without). I think the fact that the visual memories bring me back is supported by HPL’s section on “Memory and Brain Processes,” where the authors illustrate that “comparisons of people’s memories for words with their memories for pictures of the same objects show a superiority effect for pictures” (Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L. & Cocking R. R., 2000, p. 124). Visuals are really wired into long-term memories, and it’s a useful tool for meditation.

Things are really starting to gel with my practice, and I’m starting to see the benefits of continued time with reduced stimulation and lowered working memory load. I heartily recommend a little conscious shuteye for anyone who spends a little too much time thinking about complex topics. It can really help you become more cognizant of what information you’re absorbing and what you should focus your energy on.